


Prompt Sketchbook

by gwydionx



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 22:57:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23707372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwydionx/pseuds/gwydionx
Summary: Prompt fills. Some may expand into their own fics.1. Shiro/Ulaz - Soulmates (Firefly AU)2. Draco & The Outlaws - ShapeshifterShips and warnings won't be tagged to avoid bogging down the overhead, but details can be found in the notes at the start of every chapter. I will tag fandoms and characters.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 6





	1. Soulmates

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt: **Soulmates  
**Line:** "I've been checking you out."  
**Relationship:** Ulaz/Shiro (VLD)  
**Warnings: ** Canon-typical reference to medical experimentation on prisoners

“I’ve been checking you out.” 

Ulaz turned his attention from his omnitool’s readouts. The human captain rested against the doorframe to the passenger quarters, casual. Watching him. Ulaz allowed his eyes to fall back to the medical instrument he’d disassembled for repairs across his cot. “Is that so.” 

The man hummed an affirmative. “You’re a medic. Lieutenant Colonel, honorable record. Served five years on Kasmila,” he said. “And another three on Tur’inar. Full commendation.”

Ulaz did not respond. He had booked passage on the little Firefly because it was meant to be a quiet journey to the Outer Rim, that his presence would pass unremarked. His ears flicked in disinterest as he turned back to his work.

“Returned to Central Command to complete your Surgeon Masters,” Shiro added. 

He tuned the outflux two bits to the right. 

“Then disappeared from the system completely.” 

He adjusted the chronometer. “You are very well informed.” 

“I like to know who’s on my ship.” 

Amusement. “And asking was too mundane?” 

Shiro huffed a smile. “If I thought asking would get me a straight answer, I would have. Empire officials aren’t known for their candor.”

“You were worried for your crew,” Ulaz concluded. “Caution is understandable.” 

Shiro did not move from his position at the door. Ulaz could not have said what the captain was thinking, but his expression was one of deep contemplation. As though he saw through Ulaz’s staunch uniform and formality to his soul, and weighed the risk of crossing the Rubicon.

“Is there something else?” he tried.

Shiro hesitated a moment, hung on the edge of speaking in a way Ulaz could tell wasn’t his norm. “When you studied on Central Command… did they cover alien physiology?” 

Ulaz frowned, but turned his eyes back to the malfunctioning chronometer. “It is part of standard study, yes. Though I am afraid the Empire does not place value in alien biology beyond its limitations.” 

Shiro frowned thoughtfully.

Ulaz turned his attention to the captain, whose eyes had gone distant, lost in thought. “You had a question?”

Shiro came back to himself. His eyes meandered back to Ulaz, and he pushed off the doorframe to step fully into the cabin. “I had a… run-in, a few years back. With the Empire.” 

Ulaz couldn’t help a small smirk at the tone. “A run-in?”

“A misunderstanding,” Shiro clarified. “I was a pilot on a scientific expedition to the Hondo quadrant. Found out too late our flight clearance wasn’t up to Empire standard.” 

“And you were taken prisoner.” 

Shiro’s eyes narrowed. “Yes. How—” 

“Standard procedure,” Ulaz said. “Non-citizen pilots without proper clearance are detained without trial.” He’d said it by rote so many times, the explanation fell easily off his tongue. Callous, perhaps, but the captain seemed not to heed it. Only his mouth pressed in a grim line. 

“Yes. My crew and I were detained.” 

“But you were the pilot,” Ulaz surmised, “so you were held responsible.”

Not for the first time, the human’s right hand clenched in a fist. Ulaz had seen it, earlier—mechanical prosthesis, likely above the elbow. The grace in the hand’s subconscious response to Shiro’s neural impulses could only mean the technology was grafted with his nervous system, a procedure that would have been painful as it was invasive. That detail told him more than anything the human could voice—there was only one division capable of such cruelty and expertise within the Empire. Shiro had not just been a prisoner. He had been a candidate for the Druids' experiments. 

Shiro’s voice grew colder, refusing to acknowledge Ulaz’s interjection. “When I got out, most of the marks they used faded. One didn’t.” 

Ulaz remained quiet. “And you wish me to remove it.” 

Shiro did not answer. 

The gall of this human, to ask an officer of the Empire point-blank to commit treason, endeared him to Ulaz in a way that probably should have sent him running. He’d always had a weak place for those who chose the impossible, though. If he didn’t, he would not have accepted his current mission. He rose, and gestured with invitation. “May I?” 

Shiro paused only a moment more, then moved all the way into the cabin. The door hissed shut behind him. He shrugged off his duster and tossed it on the cot alongside Ulaz’s deconstructed instruments. Shiro never broke eye contact as he pulled off his right suspender and slid his arm out of the shirt sleeve to lift the fabric and expose the bare skin of his left side. He turned and displayed his back for inspection. 

Ulaz had not expected this.

The mark seeped like spilled ink across the human’s shoulder, black with edges of metallic silver. The majority of it branched in fragile veins, like a bruise that exposed the circulatory system beneath. But farther down, the black pooled into patterns, clear, solid lines running down across his trapezius before disappearing into smooth, pale skin. 

“I talked to a human doctor on Ferra,” Shiro was saying. “She couldn’t make heads or tails of it, other than a branding gone wrong. The ink wouldn’t even show up on her scanners.” 

Ulaz fought to keep his throat from constricting. He reached out, broadcasting his movement, and laid his hand over Shiro’s shoulder. More veins of ink bloomed beneath his touch. Continuing patterns were revealed, thick stripes swirling across the bicep. With a crushing sadness, he realized Shiro leaned back against the touch. 

“It is not a brand,” he managed. He’d seen the tracking implants they used on prisoners aboard the command ships. They were translucent, temporal things that faded within a few phoebs if they weren’t reapplied. This was… different. More natural. Not the look of artificially engineered lines, but natural markings. 

Ulaz was not one to shy from the truth, though it may be hard. But this was a rare instance he wished he might be otherwise. 

“You were processed through Miran,” he said.

Shiro froze. 

“When you were taken,” Ulaz continued. His hand dropped, and Shiro pulled away, slipping his arm back into his shirt. “You were classified as a danger to other prisoners, and brought through Miran.” 

“How… How do you know that?” Shiro’s voice was thick.

_ Knowledge or death. _

“Because that is where I was stationed, as well.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TBC (to a happy ending, because I'm incapable of writing anything else)


	2. Draco & The Outlaws

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** Shapeshifter  
**Line:** “For some reason, I’m attracted to you.”  
**Relationship:** Draco Malfoy & The Outlaws, implied past Jason/Roy  
**Warnings:** none

“Look, I don’t know what to tell you.” Jason glanced back over his shoulder from where he’d settled on the couch with his tea. An oversized figure slumped against the counter by the sink. “I told you not to play with that shit.” 

“Yes, well, I didn’t bloody think it would backfire onto _ me_.” Draco’s voice could have cut glass. “It was supposed to take care of the damn cat.” 

Jason smirked into his mug, hearing the Brit slip into American slang. The other day he’d heard the man use _ puerile _ and _ I dunno _in the same sentence. Another few months and they’d have him drinking beer out of cans.

“That thing has been yowling under my window for a week now.” 

“One of these days Roy’s animal rescues are gonna blow our cover before your fireworks have a chance,” Jason said. Between Kori’s lack of fucks, Roy’s insistence on feeding every animal in a five block radius, and Draco’s magic, it’d been a miracle they weren’t being pegged within minutes of arrival. As it was, they’d been holed up in a rundown apartment in Tunis for almost two weeks. Jason wasn’t all that eager to get moving again after their last job.

‘_Zombie pirates!’_ Roy had grinned while nocking a grenade arrow. ‘_Zombie fucking __pirates, Jay!’_

Draco had strode calmly down the center of the tanker ship, blasting the reanimated corpses in shockwaves over the side. There were times the wizard still forgot to account for mundane threats like flamethrowers and Uzis, but with Jason and Roy fighting the corporeal, and Kori and Draco covering the rest, the four outlaws had formed a damn good team. 

Draco let out what sounded like a rumbling growl, and a furry tail whipped back and forth across the floor. Feathers ruffled, and hooved hindfeet clacked on the linoleum as he shifted. He sounded more like a disgruntled housecat than a… He cast another glance over his shoulder. “What are you supposed to be, anyway?”

Draco gave a low growl that was probably meant to be intimidation. At least his face was mostly unchanged, apart from some distortion in his pupils and scale-like feathers smattered across his jaw. The rumbling bass made him wonder how deep in his anatomy the changes went, though. 

“Sphinx?” Jason tried. “Pegasus?”

“I refuse to dignify that with an answer.”

The front door opened with a bang and a loud rustling of grocery bags. 

“Honeys, I’m home!”

“Fucking finally,” Jason cursed. “You take a wrong turn?”

Roy flipped him off between the bags of raw produce he hauled to the counter. “I get lost in Tunisia one time, and he never lets me forget it. Fuck you too, zombie dick.”

“My dick works just fine, and you know it,” Jason snorted. 

Roy flashed him an evil grin, and Jason smacked his hat brim in retaliation. Roy cackled and turned to all seven animorphed feet of Draco sulking by the sink. “We having another polyjuice incident?”

Draco’s tail flicked. “No, we’re having a ‘magic doesn’t penetrate bullet-proof glass even when the creature on the other side is an abomination’ incident.” 

Roy’s brows shot up, and he glanced at Jason.

“The cat was at it again.”

Roy’s eyes lit up. “Oh… _ Oh_.” His brows furrowed. “Seriously, the glass absorbed a direct shot?” 

“It didn’t absorb it. It bloody magnified it,” Draco cursed. “Created a kaleidoscope effect and reflected all the elements back. On _ me._” 

Jason reached past Roy to steal an apple. “It was Fourth of July in here,” he agreed. “We’re lucky it didn’t do any real damage.”

Draco rolled his eyes. “Even if it had, your thick skull would have shielded you.”

“Keep sweet talking me like that and I’ll take you to a Wendy’s, babe.”

A barely contained smirk tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Be still my heart. Could you ever love a creature like me?”

“For some reason, I’m attracted to you,” Jason lamented. “It must be the hooves.” 

Roy hadn’t stopped staring at Draco’s face. “Did you have line of sight when you threw the spell?”

“Through the glass,” Draco rumbled. “I wouldn’t have cast otherwise.” 

“Huh,” Roy muttered. 

“Yes, _ huh_.”

Roy’s brows drew tighter, and Jason saw the moment he went from toying with the data to a wholesale deep dive. He made a beeline for his duffel bag without a word.

“...And we’ve lost him.” Jason’s smile was somewhere between bewilderment and adoration. He shook his head and turned to inspect the produce. “Chimera?”

Draco flapped his wings, and went to join Roy. “Keep guessing, Yank.”

…

Roy made his rounds later that night, flicking off lights and making a dent in the layer of takeout containers accumulating on the counters. Kori had lifted off for a joy flight a few minutes ago, and Jason passed out on the couch in a puddle of his own drool. Roy was half tempted to take a blackmail photo, but it was the first decent sleep Jason had gotten in two weeks, and somehow that felt unsportsmanlike. Instead Roy threw a fuzzy snowman blanket over him and wandered in search of the final member of their crew. 

He found Draco flopped across the bed in the backroom. He was still all feathers and claws, a weird blend of horse, raptor, lion and human. Roy could tell he was lying awake by the sporadic tail flicks. 

Something in his heart melted at that. He sighed and flicked the lights out to let Draco know he was there, then collapsed on the bed halfway on top of the animorphed wizard. He came to rest with his head pillowed on Draco’s stomach. Another bloom of something deep down came when Draco didn’t shy at the contact. For weeks after he’d arrived, the wizard had evaded touch like it scalded him. Roy settled more permanently into the soft mattress. 

They lay in silence for minutes, Roy content to stare at the cracked and water stained ceiling and listen to the rumble of Draco’s breath. He could feel the other man awake and brooding, though. 

“So… Hippogriff, huh?”

Draco chuffed. Roy knew his cryptids. “I tried to conjure the most terrifying creature imaginable.”

His eyebrow arced skeptically. “All the shit you’ve seen in _both_ universes, and that’s your nightmare?” 

“Have you met a hippogriff?” Draco said. “They’re preposterous.” 

“Hate to break it to you, but you’re living with an alien and an undead assassin in an alternate reality. The _ HMS Rationality _sailed a long time ago.” 

Draco snorted. Tentatively, his claws fingered through Roy’s hair. “Fair point.” A moment of hesitation. “I suppose it’s easier to face the small monsters.”

Roy reached up and gently grasped Draco’s scaled hand. For once, Draco accepted it, and they lay in the quiet dark, hand in hand in silence.


End file.
